Vocab 1-162
archaism
"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!" Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
bathos
Alexander Pope coined the usage of ___ to mock the unintentional mishaps of incompetent writers, but later comic authors and poets used ____ intentionally for mirthful effects.
archaism
Artists might choose a ____ over a more familiar word because it is more suitable for meter, for rhyme, for alliteration, or for its associations with the past
allusion
Authors often use _____ to establish a tone, create an implied association, contrast two objects or people, make an unusual juxtaposition of references, or bring the reader into a world of experience outside the limitations of the story itself.
alliteration
Coleridge describes the sacred river Alph in Kubla Khan as "Five miles meandering with a mazy motion," which ____ with the consonant m.
allegory
Contrast with fable, parable, and symbolism
anticlimax
For example: "Osama Bin Laden: Wanted for Crimes of War, Terrorism, Murder, Conspiracy, and Nefarious Parking Practices."
abstract diction
For instance, calling something pleasant or pleasing is abstract, while calling something yellow or sour is concrete.
allusion
For instance, if a teacher were to refer to his class as a horde of Mongols, the students will have no idea if they are being praised or vilified unless they know what the Mongol horde was and what activities it participated in historically.
allegory
If we wish to be more exact, this is an act of interpretation, a way of understanding, rather than a genre in and of itself
anticlimax
In rhetoric, the effect is frequently intentional and comic
alliteration
Most frequently, the _____ involves the sounds at the beginning of words in close proximity to each other.
antithesis
Using opposite phrases in close conjunction
anticlimax
also called bathos
antithesis
contrast to oxymoron
archetype
for example, recurring symbolic situations
anaphora
is the opposite of epistrophe
allusion
A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification.
anecdote
A good ____ has a single, definite point, and the setting, dialogue, and characters are usually subordinate to the point of the story
antihero
A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a traditional hero
allegory
A reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative
anecdote
A short narrative account of an amusing, unusual, revealing, or interesting event
anaphora
A well known example is the Beatitudes in the Bible, where nine statements in a row begin with "Blessed are." ("Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.")
archaism
A word, expression, spelling, or phrase that is out of date in the common speech of an era
recurring symbolic situations
Also, the long journey, the difficult quest or search, the catalog of difficult tasks, the pursuit of revenge, the descent into the underworld, redemptive rituals, fertility rites, the great flood, the End of the World
anastrophe
Alternatively, we can use the term ____ as a reference to entire narratives in which the sequence of events are chopped into sections and then "shuffled" or "scrambled" into an unusual narrative order
anastrophe
An example of this type of _____ might be the sequence of events in Quentin Tarentino's film Pulp Fiction or Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five.
archetype
An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life
allusion
Authors assume that the readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context.
apostrophe
Death, of course, is a phenomenon rather than a proud person
anachronism
Elizabethan theater often intentionally used ____in its costuming, a tradition that survives today when Shakespeare's plays are performed in biker garb or in Victorian frippery
antithesis
Examples might be, "I burn and I freeze," or "Her character is white as sunlight, black as midnight."
anastrophe
For example, Shakespeare speaks of "Figures pedantical" (LLL 5.2.407).
anaphora
For instance, Churchill declared, "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost shall be." The repetition of "We shall. . ." creates a rhetorical effect of solidarity and determination
apostrophe
For instance, John Donne commands, "Oh, Death, be not proud."
anaphora and epistrophe
For instance, Saint Paul writes to the church at Corinth, "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they the ministers of Christ? I am more."
anastrophe
For instance, T. S. Eliot writes of "arms that wrap about a shawl" rather than "shawls that wrap about an arm" in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
alliteration
For instance, the phrase "buckets of big blue berries" _____ with the consonant b.
allegory
Greek ("speaking otherwise"). The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning.
anaphora
Greek, "carried again"
anachronism
In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Shakespeare writes the following lines: Brutus: Peace! Count the clock. Cassius: The clock has stricken three (Act II, scene i, lines 193-94).
abstract diction
In the 20th century, the distinction between concrete and abstract has been a subject of some debate.
antihero
In the case of the Byronic and Miltonic ____, the ____is a romanticized but wicked character who defies authority, and becomes paradoxically ennobled by his peculiar rejection of virtue
abstract diction
In the early 1800s, the Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley once again preferred concreteness.
anachronism
Indeed, from surviving illustrations, the acting companies in Elizabethan England appeared to deliberately create ____ in their costumes.
archaism
It also might be attractive as a quick way to defamiliarize an everyday phrase or object.
antithesis
It can be a contrast of opposites: "Evil men fear authority; good men cherish it."
apostrophe
King Lear proclaims, "Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, / More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child / Than the sea-monster."
anastrophe
Lewis Carroll uses _____ in "Jabberwocky," where we hear, "Long time the manxome foe he sought. / So rested he by the Tumtum tree . . . ."
allegory
Medieval works were frequently _____ such as the plays Mankind and Everyman. Other important _____ works include mythological ____ like Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche in The Golden Ass and Prudentius' Psychomachiae.
anastrophe
Natalie Dorsch's poem, "Just Because," makes use of extended _____ in a clever way to show how delightfully confused the speaker is after a romantic interlude: I walked up the door, shut the stairs, said my shoes, took off my prayers, turned off my bed, got into the light, all because you kissed me goodnight. Here, she makes use of _____in nearly every line.
bathos
Not to be confused with pathos, _____ is a descent in literature in which a poet or writer--striving too hard to be passionate or elevated--falls into trivial or stupid imagery, phrasing, or ideas
anachronism
Of course, there were no household clocks during Roman times, no more than there were DVD players!
anaphora and epistrophe
Often the two can be combined effectively as well.
anastrophe
Particularly clever _____ can become a figure of speech when it alters meaning in unusual ways
anachronism
Placing an event, person, item, or verbal expression in the wrong historical period
allegory
Poems, novels, or plays can all be ____, in whole or in part
allegory
Probably the most famous____ in English literature is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678), in which the hero named Christian flees the City of Destruction and travels through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, and finally arrives at the Celestial City. The entire narrative is a representation of the human soul's pilgrimage through temptation and doubt to reach salvation in heaven.
alliteration
Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound.
anachronism
Some actors would dress in current Elizabethan garb, others in garb that was a few decades out of date, and others wore pseudo-historical costumes from past centuries--all within a single scene or play.
anastrophe
T. S. Eliot writes of "Time present and time past," and so on
anaphora
The intentional repetition of beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect
allegory
The label comes from an interaction between symbols that creates a coherent meaning beyond that of the literal level of interpretation.
prosody
The study or analysis of verse poetry--its sounds, rhythms, scansion and meter, stanzaic form, alliteration, assonance, euphony, onomatopoeia, and rhyme
archetype
These images have particular emotional resonance and power
archetype
These would be expressed in the subconscious of an individual who would recreate them in myths, dreams, and literature
allegory
This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level.
allegory
Typically, this involves the interaction of multiple symbols, which together create a moral, spiritual, or even political meaning.
archaism
Until fairly recently, it was still common to find poets using "I ween," "steed," and "gramercy" in their poems, even though they wouldn't use these terms in normal daily speech
archetype
Using the comparative anthropological work of Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough, the psychologist Carl Jung theorized that the archetype originates in the collective unconscious of mankind, i.e., the shared experiences of a race or culture, such as birth, death, love, family life, and struggles to survive and grow up
anecdote
Usually, the ____ does not exist alone, but it is combined with other material such as expository essays or arguments
alliteration
Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" employs the technique: "I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass."
antihero
While the traditional hero may be dashing, strong, brave, resourceful, or handsome, the _____may be incompetent, unlucky, clumsy, dumb, ugly, or clownish
anecdote
Writers may use ____ to clarify points, to humanize individuals, or to create a memorable image in the reader's mind
allusion
____ can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works.
anticlimax
a drop, often sudden and unexpected, from a dignified or important idea or situation to one that is trivial or humorous
anticlimax
a sudden descent from something sublime to something ridiculous. In fiction and drama, this refers to action that is disappointing in contrast to the previous moment of intense interest
anaphora and epistrophe
are examples of rhetorical schemes. They serve to lend weight and emphasis.
allusion
assumes a certain level of education or awareness in the audience, so it should normally be taken as a compliment rather than an insult or an attempt at obscurity.
allegory
can be as short as a single sentence or as long as a ten volume book
archetype
examples can be found cross-culturally
antithesis
express their contrary ideas in a balanced sentence
archetype
for example recurring characters
archetype
for example recurring images
archetype
for example recurring themes
archetype
for example symbolic colors
picaresque novel/picaresque narrative
from Spanish picaro, a rogue or thief
bathos
greek: "depth"
archetype
include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that some critics think have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race
antithesis
it can be a contrast of degree: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for all mankind."
abstract diction
language that describes qualities that cannot be perceived with the five senses
archetype
recur in different times and places in myth, literature, folklore, fairy tales, dreams, artwork, and religious rituals
archaism
still deliberately used by a writer, poet, or playwright for artistic purposes
recurring themes
such as the Faustian bargain; pride preceding a fall; the inevitable nature of death, fate, or punishment; blindness; madness; taboos such as forbidden love, patricide, or incest
recurring symbolic situations
such as the orphaned prince or the lost chieftain's son raised ignorant of his heritage until he is rediscovered by his parents, or the damsel in distress rescued from a hideous monster by a handsome young man who later marries the girl
recurring characters
such as witches as ugly crones who cannibalize children, lame blacksmiths of preternatural skill, womanizing Don Juans, the hunted man, the femme fatale, the snob, the social climber, the wise old man as mentor or teacher, star-crossed lovers
apostrophe
the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present
apostrophe
the act of addressing the abstract has its own rhetorical power
recurring characters
the caring mother-figure, the helpless little old lady, the stern father-figure, the guilt-ridden figure searching for redemption, the braggart, the young star-crossed lovers, the bully, the villain in black, the oracle or prophet, the mad scientist, the underdog who emerges victorious, the mourning widow or women in lamentation
epistrophe
the poet or rhetorician repeats the concluding phrase over and over for effects
